| 1 | Name: | The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor | |
| Institution: | United States Supreme Court | ||
| Year Elected: | 2002 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 502. Physicians, Theologians, Lawyers, Jurists, Architects, and Members of Other Professions | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1954 | ||
Sonia Sotomayor received a B.A.. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979. She was an assistant district attorney for New York County until 1984 when she joined the law firm Pavia & Harcourt, becoming a partner in 1988. She was a member of the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, 1980-92, and she became the U.S. District Judge of the Southern District of New York in 1992. She served as a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, 2nd Circuit, 1998 to 2009, and she was also a lecturer at Columbia Law School and a former adjunct professor at New York University School of Law. President Barack Obama nominated her for the Supreme Court seat left vacant when Justice Souter announced his retirement. She was confirmed and on August 8, 2009, she was sworn in as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Sotomayor has been widely recognized as one of the ablest federal judges. Her opinions are exceptionally thoughtful, courageous, and clear headed. She showed these qualities as a trial judge in her powerful and controversial opinion during the baseball strike and continued to do so on the Court of Appeals. Before becoming a judge she was a distinguished international lawyer and is viewed on the court as one of the leading experts on comparative and international legal problems. Justice Sotomayor has been honored with the M. Taylor Pyne Honor Prize from Princeton University, the Charles W. Froessel Award of the New York Law School Law Review, the Distinguished Lawyers Award from Lawyers College of Puerto Rico, the Lance Liebman Nice Guys/Gals Do Not Necessarily Finish Last Award from the Columbia Law School Center for Public Interest Law, the Katharine Hepburn Medal (2015), the John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service (2015), the Hispanic Heritage Foundation's Leadership Award, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law (2020). Justice Sotomayor has received honorary degrees from Brooklyn Law School, Princeton University, Herbert H. Lehman College, Pace University and Northeastern University. Additionally, Bryn Mawr College awarded her the 2015 Katherine Hepburn Medal. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002. She is the author of My Beloved World, 2013; The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor, 2018; and Turning Pages: My Life Story, 2018. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2018. | |||